


Certain Dark Things (Natasha)

by Anuna, Koren M (CyberMathWitch)



Series: The Red Thread [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Blood, Consensual Violence, Consensual Violent Sex, F/M, Fight Sex, Sexual Content, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:45:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anuna/pseuds/Anuna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyberMathWitch/pseuds/Koren%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He doesn't want her to hide?  Then she won't.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Certain Dark Things (Natasha)

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ/HEED THE WARNINGS. I mean it. This story involves consensual violence and consensual violent sex, along with some blood.
> 
> Once again, thanks go to Anuna for letting me play in this world and helping me craft this - I am having ALL the fun! Thanks also to Kadollan for additional beta duties and putting my sentences in order when they needed it.
> 
> Also, thanks/blame to sunny_serenity for introducing me to [Snow Patrol's "New York"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hD7C6onhR4) in her [Off the Grid Mix](http://sunny-serenity.livejournal.com/594591.html), which is quite possibly the only reason this chapter made it off the drawing board.

_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,_  
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.  
~ Pablo Neruda, "XVII (I do not love you...)"

*****

 _And the pupil, as Socrates says... "is the finest part of the eye," not just because it is "the part which sees" but because it is the place where another person looking will find "the image of himself looking."_  
~ Roberto Calasso, _The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony_

*****

 

She's never been claustrophobic, but the more time she spends at SHIELD, the more she sympathetic she is to the feeling.

She has more freedom here than she's ever been given before, but it feels restrictive, suffocating, too much. Not the freedom itself, but the observation. The looks. The stares.

The fear that others, the younger agents in particular, aren't very good at hiding.

She knows there's a wildness about her, something that echoes off her very skin, surrounds her like a halo, as red as her hair. Slip into a role, she can keep it in check - Tatiana doesn't have it, nor does Ludmilla, nor Nadine, nor Angelique. When she plays those roles she can lock it away, hide it under their skin and clothes and it's fine. When the masks are ripped away and the labyrinth revealed, the wildness returns, the beast is unleashed and crushes whoever has been trapped by her maze.

Here there is nothing to hold her in, no shape for her crawl inside of and she feels too open, too loose, too raw. The violence rides her or she rides it, but something has to give and she feels close to breaking.

He is in her maze, and she doesn't want to break him.

Control, however, is something she is good at, better than good at, and she can utilize it now. So she holds herself back, holds herself in, bloody fingers cling so tightly to all of her corners they'll never be able to uncurl. She _can't_ let go because people might die.

The agents she spars with don't fight this way. They don't treat the matches like life or death, kill or be killed, they're only a game. She can't strike like she wants to, can't put all that violence and fury behind what she does because they aren't prepared. They don't _want_ it. They might die.

She is used to killing people, not making friends.

The violence coils beneath her skin, one, two, three, as the agents go down, bruised and aching but not damaged, not dead. On a mark she might enjoy the look of surprise and trepidation that she sees on their faces, the realization of what she could have, but did not do when they see the echo of the monster in her eyes. Here it just frustrates her all the more.

*****

He walks into the room, and she feels him like a magnet, like a lodestone pulling at her skin and drawing her closer to where he paces at the edge of the floor. He is watching her, like he always does, and she wants so much to pull him to her, to try _him_ because she's seen something familiar, and there has been too much and not enough and it's not quite the same as a bloody fight but her blood still sings from his mouth and his touch and the feel of him coming apart underneath her hands, not because she tricked him into her maze but because he wants to be there.

He doesn't understand. How can he? How can he not? It's confusing, as confusing as open-ended questions that don't have a right answer. Do you like this? Do you not?

 _This_ doesn't have a right answer, this thing between them, and she can feel her anger growing as the violence pulls tighter, spins faster, presses harder. Doesn't he know she'll tear him apart, just as surely as anyone else? She can't leave the monster behind, and when they meet, someone will die.

Anger, at him (for everything, for nothing) and frustration (at him, at them, at herself) reaches a boiling point and she glares, lets it all shift behind her eyes, wants him to see and be afraid. _I dare you,_ she thinks. _I dare you to taste what you've wrought, what you've brought here._

"Barton," she says, and out of habit and design she lets sex bleed into her voice and the shift of her hips, hoping that it might draw him in where better judgment might otherwise prevail.

"Got a problem, Romanoff?" His tone of voice is casual, unconcerned, and it only serves to feed her ire.

"I do have a problem," she replies as he comes closer, just at the edge of stepping into the center of the maze, but then he turns away. 

"I won't fight you," he says evenly and she wants to scream. Anger is winning out. She needs it, needs this, someone who can take it, can take her that she doesn't have to play nice for. She wants that as much as she's wanted anything, and if he can't be the one to give that to her, then who? 

"The hell you won't," she bites out and shoves him, hard. A childish move, only decidedly not because she puts her weight and strength behind it. He responds, reacts through balance and control, keeping his footing and stepping away, and he seems as calm as she is not.

"Why should I? Tell me why I should?"

It isn't supposed to be like this, she thinks to herself. Remembers his hands at her hips, that iron control letting her set the pace, taking her direction as she urged him to taste, to touch. She remembers his response to her lips and her hands and how he shuddered when she shifted against him. Now he's resisting, challenging and she wants to scream.

"Are you a hawk or a chicken?" she taunts, knowing even as she says it that it's weak. That she's losing against her emotions, losing control. She can feel her fingers slipping on blood and skin, losing her grip on the edge of the maze.

"Neither," he replies and she lunges. Done. She's falling and she doesn't even care.

 _"Fight"_ she hisses, striking out, fast and brutal and he dodges, just dodges, avoids, deflects. "Fight me!" If he won't give her this, no one can give her this, and without it, she'll die, consumed in her own rage and anger as it eats her from the inside out. Her leg sweeps under his, hard, and he should go down but he dodges, shifts, and turns away. She tackles him, and finds herself beneath him, pinned to the floor. He has a grip on her hair, avoids her knee, and shoves himself away to stand back up above her. It's like that, back and forth, and she knows from the feel she must be bruising him, because now, finally, she's not holding back. 

Her muscles are singing, but he looks impassive, unmoved. Methodically meeting her measure for measure, but rolling up and away. She wants a response, wants to know she's not alone in this violence and angry need but he's not giving in.

It has to be there. She's tired of being alone.

In the Red Room, there was violence and brutality, but everyone was dead on the inside, dulled under orders and conditions and masks. He's alive, brilliantly, beautifully alive and she wants to be alive too.

She's tired of hiding what she is, tired of holding herself back from what she wants, what she needs. 

Their bodies crash into one another a final time and he takes her down and holds her there, hard against the mat, trapped underneath him, and when his eyes lock on hers she feels like he's stripped her bare, he's looking at all of her and she's never, ever felt this exposed. 

"Stop hiding who you are."

 

*****

She replays it in her mind as she follows his path, seeks him out in his quarters after he leaves her there. Her footing is off, he's disarmed her in more ways than one, and she can't wrap her head around what he wants from her. He's asking the impossible, the thing she both wants and is most afraid of. 

_Stop hiding who you are._

He opens his door and she crashes into him, all the anger that was momentarily stunned roaring back to the foreground of her mind. If he wants her to stop hiding? He wants to invoke the beast, then he can reap what he's sown. She returns his punch, her own jaw still aching and sore.

"What was that? What the fuck was that?!" she demands. All of her careful control has eroded away, because of him and the things she's done, because of them and this place, and he brought her here and just left her there and he doesn't know what he's asking her to do. He can't know, because he wouldn't want that. No one would.

His only answer is in her back hitting the wall as he pins her like he did on the mat, but fighting isn't her only weapon. It's not even her best weapon up close, and she takes his mouth just to prove it to him.

He doesn't want her to hide? Then she won't.

In the center of the room she looks to see what she's done, she expects him to be disgusted, or furious, almost wants him to be because then he'll walk away and she'll be free, but his face...

Need and desire. Hunger.

Her breath catches in her throat and she doesn't close her eyes until she has to so she can slip her shirt off over her head. She's seen desire on his face before, but never anything this raw, and she wants to see more.

A shove to his chest and he drops to the bed, open and wanting, and she knows she could take anything from him right now. The power is heady, familiar and real as she climbs on top of him and leans in. She hovers just inches away, wondering if he's scared yet or if he even realizes just what she could do to him like this. 

Hands fist in her hair and what rises from her throat is a rough sound he swallows with his mouth. Then her world is off balance in more ways than one as he flips them both over and presses against her from chest to hips.

"Get naked," she pleads. She feels stretched, too tight and too thin, knows something has to give and hands are no longer enough. He gets up, and for a minute he stares, taking all of her in. "Now," she demands, preferring the weight of his body to that of his eyes. Eyes that see her and see too much. 

She can't breathe when his hands touch her face as he rejoins her on the bed, can't breathe because of the feel of his skin against hers and the dark things stirring in his eyes that call to hers. She wants to pull him closer, to take all that darkness inside, but he's fighting her, trying to distract her like she distracted him. His mouth is everywhere but on hers; his body is against hers but not close enough. She feels the edge of his teeth against her breast and then the press of his tongue and she hears a distant sound that might be her own. He wants it, tries to take it by kissing her fully and deeply again, swallowing sounds and her breath until her head is spinning and she pulls away for air.

"Do you trust me?" he asks against her throat, the same place he's laid his hand, and at the memory she shivers, wet and achy, and she tightens her legs around his trying to find the right angle to pull him in. His thumb brushes her lips and he raises up and waits until she focuses on him. "Come on, Tasha. Do you trust me?"

She doesn't have words, just stares at him because it feels like if she moves she'll fly apart. She thinks she might have managed to nod her head, just enough, because his hands trail down her body and start to explore. It's slow and careful, almost reverent and he lays his palm over her heart. 

"Do you trust me?" he asks one more time, and this time she knows she nods, she licks her lips and her voice is strained as she answers him.

The "yes" changes tone and timbre as his fingers slip between her legs, stroke her gently before he slides them inside, first one, then a second, his other hand still between her breasts. She watches him, watches everything that he does, and when he licks her wetness off his fingers she bucks up against him and chokes on a moan.

The violence is still there, strung tight and waiting and she knows when he finally moves inside her they won't be able to stop. The air is heavy and time slows down and he's moving so goddamn slowly but she can't speak or look away. He watches her eyes and she has to do the same.

She's tight and he's thick and it's just this side of too much, it hurts but that's only feeding the fire. He moves slowly, and she writhes because she needs more. The muscles of his back flex against her nails, she sees him flinch at the small pain but he also thrusts harder, uncontrolled, and she bites down on his lip as he kisses her. There's the taste of blood on her tongue when he pulls away and a moment of fear that he's leaving but he's still inside her and his breath is hot against her neck, then her shoulder and across her chest. 

He stops abruptly and it takes her a moment to realize what he's looking at. She can just barely make out a streak of red over her breast and runs a finger over the still bleeding mark on his lower lip. "Clint," she whispers, and in a low voice he tells her that it's alright, but there are dark things that move behind his eyes, things she has an answer for and she raises her head and licks the cut before kissing him again.

She feels him shake and she rolls them both over so that she can sit astride him, keeping him inside of her and increasing the pace as she rises and falls above him. She's so, so close but it's not quite enough until his hands are on her and they're moving together and she crashes over the edge.

His heart is racing under her ear, she can hear it echoing through his chest in counterpoint to his fingers combing gently through her hair. Adrenaline fades, sanity returns and sleep beckons, drawing her down and keeping her close in his arms.

*****

It's dark and still when she opens her eyes and slips out of his bed. It's too late to leave, now it would just be cowardly and that is not something she is. Her head is full of things she cannot or does not want to name and she finds herself in the bathroom looking at herself in the mirror under stark florescent lights. There are bruises forming on her arms and torso from their bout on the mats and more intimate bruises on her hips. She traces those with light fingers and wonders if she left any on him. 

There are red streaks on her throat and collarbone that she knows is his blood, and things tighten low in her belly when she remembers how he reacted when she bit him and what she'd seen in him.

She hears him before he reaches the doorway but she doesn't turn around. Strong hands rest on her shoulders and his thumbs rub circles against her skin. She wants his arms tight around her waist but she has no idea how to put a voice to that kind of thing. He looks at her like he's searching for something, some kind of answer to a burning question he can't just ask. She knows when he sees how he's marked her because he breathes more deeply and his pupils widen despite the brightness. 

She turns around to face him when he shifts her. "Come here," he murmurs and she sets her hands against his chest while he wipes the blood away.

"Clint..." she tries to speak but her voice feels raw and far away. He smiles at her and she sees the split on his lip reaches out to touch it. "Does it hurt?"

He shakes his head. 

"Liar," she says, but she lets her hand drop away and rests her forehead against his chest instead. She feels his lips against her hair and his hands tangled in the strands and wonders if this is enough to hold them both together.


End file.
